Athens, National Archaeological Museum

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That was not very clever: visiting the National Archaeological Museum on the last day of a two week trip through northern and central Greece. Of course, it was a nice summary of everything we’ve seen, but I think it would have been better to start over here. Ever a teacher, I might have used the museum’s splendid collection of sculpture to explain to my companions the development of Greek art.

That’s what you’ll find on the first floor: lots of sculpture in a series of rooms surrounding a large hall, which is devoted to Mycenaean art. There, you will find the golden objects from Mycenae that Schliemann found. The sculpture rooms surround it. Your tour starts with some kouroi and you can easily follow the growth to greater accuracy in representing the human body. When you’ve finished about a third of your tour, the Greek sculptors have mastered every aspect of anatomy, and you will pass along many classical sculptures, including two dazzling copies of the Diadumenus and the Cnidian Aphrodite. After that, more sculpture: the fourth century, Hellenism, and finally the Roman age.

On the ground floor, there’s also a series of rooms that contain metal art. Here, you will see the Anticythera Mechanism, but also collections of arrowheads from Marathon and Thermopylae. The Egyptian part – also on the ground floor – is a bit odd in a museum dedicated to Greek art, but the collection is too small to be exposed in a museum of its own and too important to keep stored away. In the Hellenistic part of the Egyptian collection, I noticed a statue of Hephaestion that I had never seen before.

Upstairs, you will find a marvelous collection of pottery and some objects that don’t fit anywhere else, like the Lemnian inscription, written in a language related to Etruscan. Next to it is a section dedicated to the investigations at Santorini, where some splendid frescoes have been found.

Do not forget to visit the basement. There’s a little café with a garden, where you will see some of the sculptures found in the Anticythera wreck. They have a certain beauty because they are partly eroded. I found the giant Heracles absolutely fascinating.

This museum was visited in 1989, 1992, 2004, 2007, 2010.

76 pictures related to this museum

Piraeus, Theater, Head of Dionysus (classicizing)	Aegina, Ptolemy VI Philometor	Thebes, Tombstone	The fight for the body of Patroclus.
Argos, Theater, Statue of Aphrodite	Eleusis, Temple F, Cecrops and Herse	Lycian portrait of Omphale	Hellenistic ruler
Aegina, Temple of Apollo, Statue of a wounded warrior	Argos, Heraion, West pediment, Head of Hera	Marathon, Arrowheads	Mycene, Wall painting ("La Parisienne")
Gomphoi, Relief of Odysseus and Amphicleia	Akrotiri, Building B, Room B1, Wall painting of antelopes	Aegina, Tombstone of a young man, holding a bird	Thermopylae, Arrowheads
Megara, Statue of a Roman emperor (Trajan or Hadrian)	Piraeus, Funerary stela with ball players	Olympia, Head of the boxer Satyros	Argos, Relief of the Doryphorus of Polykleitos
Athens, Stoa of Attalus, Attalus II Philadelphus	Pharsalus, Krater with a four-horse chariot	Eleusis, Relief of Demeter, Triptolemus, and Kore	Thebes, Head of Artemis
Mycene, House of the Warrior Krater, Warrior Krater	Lemnos, Tombstone of an Etruscan (?) warrior	Oropos, Aeolian-Ionic capital	Corinth, Relief of a hoplite
Athens, Kerameikos, Base of the statue of a wrestler	Argos, Heraion, West pediment, Palladion	Decree of Tefnakht	Eucratides II of Bactria
Athens, Kerameikos, Alexander with a Lion's Pelt	Piraeus, Statue of a woman or Demeter	Mycene, Boar's tusk helmet	Athens, Pnyx, Lenormant Athena
Piraeus, Funerary stela of Damasistrate	Zeus and Ganymedes	Athens, Temple of Zeus, Portrait of Polemo of Laodicea	Alexandria, Alexander the Great (part of a group with Hephaestion)
Lead figurine of Athena	Eretria, Gymnasium, Statue of Cleonicus	Epidauros, Temple of Artemis, Nike	Melos, Statue of Poseidon
Sais, Temple of Neith, Statuette	Piraeus, Head of a bearded god	Eleusis, Relief of a drunk Heracles	Lebadeia, Relief of Trophonius
Chalcis-Vromousa, Head of a woman (Roman copy of a Greek original)	Smyrna, Portrait of Caligula, reworked to resemble Titus	Eleusis, Tombstone of a warrior	Nysa, Bouleuterion, "Little Refugee"
Argos, Heraion, Sima	Megiste, Bellerophon sarcophagus.	Mycene, Dagger with lion hunt	Akrotiri, Building B, Room B1, Wall painting of boxers
Piraeus, Julian the Apostate	Thebes (?), Block statue of Prince Horwedja, governor and high priest in Heliopolis	Piraeus, Votive stela of a reclining Dionysus	Dodona, Figurine of Zeus Keraunos
Eretria, Lekythos (Bosanquet Painter)	Athens, Kerameikos, Skull of Myrthis	Athens, Kerameikos, Dipylon krater	Mycene, Wall painting of a griffin with a warrior
Megara, Statue of Dionysus	Sparta, Statue of Julia Aquilia Severa, damaged after her death	Athens, Statue of a Minotaur	Athens, Varvakeion Athena
Athens, Kerameikos, Siren	Argos, Heraion, Amazonomachy	Athens, Agora, Late Geometric pyxis	Alexandria, Hephaestion (part of a group with Alexander)
Larisa, Tombstone of a man with a hat	Corinth, Plate with Demeter	Larisa, Tombstone of Polyxena	Artemisium, Statue of Zeus